'Tis the Season...

I'll admit I'm feeling a little pressure to write great posts because some people have told me they like my writing--which is great--but now I've got a reputation to upkeep. Bummer.

Lately it's just been class and school work. Nothing exciting is happening except it is the beginning of a festival season here called "Fasnet", or as they say two towns over "Fasching" or if you live a little further north "Karnival"... (I think those are all the names.) I say beginning because it lasts over five weeks and is essentially a countdown until the fasting period of Lent. These Germans must take Lent dangerously serious though, because it is five weeks of intense partying and indulging in vices.

Every weekend there is a parade in a different town with their own costumes, themes, and traditions. The parade is best compared to the parade of fools at Cheeseburger festival. (Yes, for all you out-of-towners, Michigan actually has a festival for cheeseburgers. Really, look it up. We're kind of proud of it.) Only instead of flamingos and obesity they promote witches, drinking, and terrorizing neighbors. A normal Fasnet parade goes something like this: The really intense Fasnett-goers dress up as something. Generally a witch, or joker, maybe a tree, but never an ordinary witch, joker or tree. These are nightmare-inducing masks with full body suits. No one here uses it as an excuse to dress up as a "sexy black cat". The goal is to scare the pants off of small children. Fun fact: They succeed.

So, after donning the unnerving costume and lighting up their torches these people roam the streets in a sort of parade fashion encouraging participation from the looky-loos by bodily picking them up (mostly young women because they're lighter) hoisting them up in cages and spinning the cages. Those are just the lucky ones though, because the others may only be thrown into barrels of confetti, have their shoelaces cut off, have oil wiped over their face and hands, or if your parade is really boring, have candy shoved down their shirts. Remember: this is all done by anonymous, and easily very drunk, masked strangers.

I think it goes without saying that not everyone likes Fasnet. My host family for one, among many of the young women I've talked with, have told me that they hate it. But they always seem to tag on that I absolutely HAVE to go because it's a must see. Elke just encouraged my host brother to go with me instead of alone. Huh.

As I have yet to personally partake in any of these wonderful traditions, these stories I'm telling you have come from the local newspaper (Elke is letting me bring it home as a souvenir. She says souvenir, I say proof.), and a girl at school who, to no avail after screaming "Ich bin Auslander! Ich bin Auslander! *I'm foreign!*" to get away, was confetti-ed and hoisted onto witches shoulders and carried about.
(Note to my very alarmed mother right now: Not all of these celebrations turn out like this. It's just a tradition in some towns and in others it is completely different.)

On that very interesting note, I will leave you all now to get some sleep before classes tomorrow. Bis bald.